SPME-GC/MS Analysis of Volatile Components from Air-dried Sausage during Processing

Air-dried sausage (ADS) is a kind of Chinese traditional spontaneous fermented sausages, and is popular to consumers. In order to investigate the changes of volatile components from ADS during processing, solid phase micro-extraction (SPME) was employed to extract volatiles from samples of different processing stages. And then, volatile compounds were separated and identified by capillary gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS). In this work, 19, 25 and 29 kinds of volatile compounds were identified from samples periodically taken at 0 d, 2 d and 7 d. 32 volatile compounds were identified in total during the entire process. The main volatile compounds during the processing of ADS were ethyl alcohol, hexanal, D-limonene, 2-pentanone and hexanoic acid ethyl ester. Branched-chain aldehydes: 3-methylbutanal and 2-methylbutanal were also detected and identified. The formation of these volatile compounds may be attributed to the added alcohol, spices, fat oxidation, amino acid metabolism, microbial activity and the interaction among these factors.